Female Genital Mutilation practices in Kenya: - Feed the Minds

8.
Although religion, aesthetics and social culture
have been identified as features which contribute
to the practice 4 , FGM remains primarily a cultural
rather than a religious practice, occurring
across different religious groups. FGM is not
sanctioned by any religious texts. Although in some
communities, religious interpretations have been
used to justify the practice. Hygiene and aesthetics
are frequently quoted as factors supporting FGM,
often underpinned by beliefs that female genitalia
are ugly, have a bad odour and can be made more
beautiful by FGM. FGM is also seen as an essential
step in marking the transition of a girl into a mature
woman, able to carry out the roles assigned to
a woman, including marriage and childbearing.
FGM is also considered as helping curb sexual
drive and respecting cultural/traditional heritage.
PrevAlence oF FGm
Since the 1990s, national and sub-national data
collection on FGM has taken place in more than
20 countries through the Demographic and Health
Surveys (DHS), prompted in part at least by Toubia’s
report, Female Genital Mutilation: A call for
Global Action 5 . The collation of data by population
characteristics such as age, ethnicity, religion,
residence and education has enabled some of the
key factors influencing the prevalence of FGM to
be better understood 3 . The picture which emerges
is complex, with strong regional differences in the
prevalence of FGM in many countries, usually mirroring
the homelands of specific ethnic communities.
In most, but not all countries, FGM prevalence
is higher in rural than urban areas. There is also
some evidence that education plays a role, with
the daughters of well-educated women being less
likely to be circumcised. There are exceptions,
however, for instance in Egypt, where education
appears not to make a difference to whether a
young woman is circumcised or not.
4 Mohamud A Ali N and Yinger N (1999) FGM programmes to
date: What works and what doesn’t work. Geneva: WHO/PATH
5 Toubia N (1993) Female Genital Mutilation: A call for Global
Action. New York: Rainbo
internAtionAl
eFForts on FGm
Attempts to persuade communities to abandon
FGM were first recorded by missionary and
colonial authorities early in the twentieth century,
and were largely seen as colonial imperialism 3 .
The efforts of western feminists in the 1960s
and 1970s were similarly regarded as being
critical of indigenous culture and imposed by
outsiders with their own agenda. However,
attitudes began to change in the mid-1990s when
the International Conference on Population and
Development (1994) and the Fourth World
Conference on Women (1995) took place in
Beijing, in which FGM was portrayed as a health
and human rights issue. It was acknowledged that
efforts to encourage abandonment needed
to include locally-led initiatives and the full
engagement of communities, health professionals
and policy makers.
In 1997, a joint international statement against
the practice of FGM was issued by the World
Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In 2008, a new
statement was released, with wider UN support
and a stronger focus on the human rights, legal
and policy dimensions. This statement was based
on the research carried out in the intervening
years, focusing on the reasons for the continued
practice, the increased involvement of health
professionals in carrying out FGM to reduce the
health consequences, and the impact of various
approaches to encouraging the abandonment of
FGM. It stressed that regardless of the reasons
for its practice, FGM is harmful and violates the
rights and dignity of women and girls, the rights
to health, security and physical integrity of the
person, the right to be free from torture and
degrading treatment, and the right to life when
the procedure results in death. The World Health
Assembly resolution in 2008 (WHA61.16) called for
an integrated approach to ending FGM within one
generation through concerted action across health,
education, finance, justice and women’s affairs,
focusing on advocacy, research and guidance for
health services.